I have long been one of the doctors who, faced with mental suffering at work, pleaded for telework. I had in mind then patients overworked by a long journey, their exhaustion once returned to start their second day. I rebelled against these conservative companies that did not adapt to modernity.
However, I note today that if telework has certainly relieved many, it has precipitated others into intense overwork. One of my patients, confined alone, worked 48 hours straight, without realizing it because nothing reminded him of the rhythm of day and night. He had a file to finalize and nothing was more important. The system is such that it crushes individuals and more so those who display their passionate relationship to their profession.
Desire for self-realization through work
Contrary to the ideas that some politicians convey, the French are not lazy. Many consider work to be the main place of self-realization. I no longer count the time taken on certain interviews to convince my burnout patients to stop. They feel it as a failure and, even sick, refuse to be paid by the community to do nothing.
In France, people are first identified by their work. A patient, a brilliant high executive pushed out by her company, criticized this vision of life in front of me: “I realize that I was just a business card on legs. I haven’t seen my children grow up, I’ve spent whole evenings with people who don’t matter to me. »
For the French, work loses importance and gains in freedom
The French and work is: “I love you, me neither”. The professional world in our country is one of the hardest in Europe and many of their lives are sacrificed to it without being satisfied (1). The strong hierarchy, the lack of recognition, the absence of teamwork and meaning are devastating. I perceived a first impulse of desacralization a few years ago, in particular among women, even if they are often held back by the fear of change or judgments (2).
Then the pandemic confirmed the movement. From now on, work is “very important” only for 24% of French people, against 60% in 1990 (3). We allow ourselves more freedom of choice even if it means living more sparingly because the essential is elsewhere. It’s about saving your skin from the cruelty of the system.
Difficulties at work difficult to admit
Barely two years ago, my patients admitted their difficulties as a couple more easily than their lack of love for their job. The current upheaval is a game-changer and loosens social conventions that have been hindering the happiness of many.
While it was rare to see an intellectual turn into a manual, today I accompany a lawyer who wants to become a florist, an architect who converts into a tanner, a financier into an animal mediator, an engineer into a cook… Since work it’s life, so choose it well. As is often the case, the intelligence of citizens enables them to find compromises and they now retain, as Camus says, that “Without work, all of life rots. But under soulless work, life suffocates and dies”.